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The Hidden Fight Behind the High Seas Treaty · How To Protect The Ocean

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  Everybody says they want to protect the ocean until the conversation
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  turns to money, power, and control.
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  This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, your weekday ocean news update.
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  If you care about staying informed on the ocean every weekday, hit that follow
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  button right now on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss tomorrow's story.
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  Today, we are talking about why the High Seas Treaty took
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  nearly two decades to negotiate.
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  Because on the surface, this probably seems simple.
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  The ocean is under pressure.
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  Countries agree that biodiversity matters.
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  So why did it take almost twenty years to reach an agreement?
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  Now listen, we've been talking about the high seas all week, and it's
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  really interesting when we look at how things work in the conservation world.
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  Uh, we need conservation to work like tomorrow or even yesterday, and it
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  takes twenty years for something that's as big as the High Seas Treaty to get
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  into play, and it probably was in the works before that too because we needed
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  to work on how we can enforce and how we can control and how we can protect
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  the high seas and the ocean that takes up, seventy-one percent of our planet.
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  But the answer of why it took twenty years, it really shows how complicated
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  ocean conservation really is, and we're gonna talk about that today.
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  The High Seas Treaty was negotiated through the United Nations, and unlike
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  national laws, international agreements require countries with different
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  priorities to work together, which, let's be honest, that's not easy, right?
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  That's really difficult.
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  We've seen how things are managed these days, and we know it's really difficult.
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  Even the Ross Sea MPA that's in Antarctica, which Antarctica is managed
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  by twenty-four countries, it took over a decade for that to go through because
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  there were countries, particular two, China and Russia, who didn't wanna
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  give up power in fishing in that area.
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  So, it becomes a pretty difficult thing.
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  Eventually, they got it through, which is great, but it still
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  becomes a pretty difficult thing.
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  Now, some countries wanted stronger conservation rules, while others were
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  worried more about losing economic opportunities, like I mentioned China
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  and Russia in certain situations.
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  Not every situation, but certain situations, especially
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  when it comes down to fishing.
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  Now, some nations have enormous industrial fishing fleets, the
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  Chinese distant fleet is probably the biggest distant fleet in the world.
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  Others rely heavily on marine resources for food security.
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  And then we have the issue of fairness.
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  One of the biggest debates centered around marine genetic resources
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  which is all about fairness.
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  That includes genetic material from deep sea organisms that could
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  someday help develop medicines, cosmetics, biotechnology products,
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  or even industrial applications.
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  Now, developed countries often have the technology and the research
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  capabilities, or capacity really and money really it comes down to, to
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  benefit from those discoveries.
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  While developing countries argue that benefits should be shared more equitably.
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  Now think about this.
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  If you're a country that's a developing country, and there's an animal that was
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  found just offshore from your shores, like just past the two hundred nautical mile
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  mark, you would have probably found it eventually if you had the money and the
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  resources and the capacity to actually go out and look for these types of animals.
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  And maybe that money that when you discovered and through the sale of
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  the cure or whatever you're looking for, the genetic material, could
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  have been a benefit to your country.
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  But meanwhile, you don't have the capacity, but other countries can come
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  in, grab whatever they want, and leave.
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  So that was a big part of the High Seas Treaty.
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  Now suddenly, the conversation became much bigger than the conservation.
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  It became about economics, access, and global power.
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  So not just about keeping things the way it should be.
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  Keep protecting the ocean and things like that.
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  Now this matters because it reveals something important.
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  The ocean conservation problem is political, and the
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  solutions are often political.
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  We often frame conservation as science versus destruction, but international
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  conservation is also a negotiation.
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  It involves trade-offs.
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  Countries protect national interests.
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  They're all gonna be a little bit selfish in their own ways.
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  Industries will lobby governments.
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  Deep sea mining, industries are lobbying governments right And enforcement
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  becomes incredibly sensitive when nobody technically owns the area being protected.
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  It's very difficult for two nations to work together to benefit each other.
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  Imagine trying to, to negotiate and work together when one is
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  trying to get access to something that the other one doesn't want.
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  It could be very difficult.
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  But here's another challenge.
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  Who enforces the rules on the high seas?
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  The United Nation doesn't have its own police force, and countries largely
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  enforce regulations themselves.
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  And that creates major concerns about accountability, especially when illegal
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  fishing remains widespread in some parts of the world, many parts of the world.
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  The treaty is important because it finally creates a legal
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  framework for coordinated action.
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  Before this, creating marine protected areas in international waters was
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  extremely difficult, if not impossible.
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  A lot of them were paper parks.
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  Now there's at least a process.
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  That may sound a little bureaucratic, and it probably is, but the
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  framework actually matters here.
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  Without the rules, cooperation falls apart pretty quickly.
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  Now, if you're getting value from this episode and these quick
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  ocean updates, follow the show and you'll never miss another episode.
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  We're gonna be posting tomorrow.
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  We're gonna have an interview with Rebecca Hubbard.
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  She's the director of the High Seas Alliance.
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  We're gonna talk all about the high seas, especially the High Seas Treaties, what
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  I've been prepping you all week for, and I can't wait for you to listen to it.
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  So don't miss out and follow the show right away.
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  Now the focus shifts from negotiation to implementation.
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  We've done the negotiation.
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  Some countries still need to ratify the treaty, but we have
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  eighty-nine at this point that have actually ratified the treaty.
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  Now, ratification means that the countries are accepting it into national law.
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  That progress can take years.
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  Even my own country, Canada, hasn't ratified yet.
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  They've agreed to it, but they haven't ratified yet.
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  So after ratification comes implementation, which is the hardest
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  part, the monitoring, the enforcement, the funding, the scientific coordination,
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  and political follow-through.
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  Because a treaty announcement creates headlines, but real conservation
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  requires long-term commitment.
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  This is where ocean advocates like Rebecca Hubbard, who's the director
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  of the High Seas Alliance, continues to push this momentum forward.
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  Fear is not that the treaty fails dramatically.
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  Fear is that it slowly loses the urgency to actually be implemented, and that
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  happens a lot in global politics.
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  We've seen it with the Paris Accord.
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  Some countries take it seriously.
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  Some countries don't.
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  It kind of just falls off the map.
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  And then some countries just demonize it and make it, like, the worst thing ever.
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  And if you follow that, you are politically leaning one way or another.
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  You're not just looking out for the planet and looking out for your own
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  health, the safety of your family, your community, your country, and so forth.
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  Now, the challenge now is keeping pressure on governments to
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  turn promises into action.
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  Like, for me, my whole purpose right now for ocean conservation and the
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  high seas is to make sure that Canada actually ratifies and sooner than later.
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  The High Seas Treaty did not take twenty years because people
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  disagreed that the ocean matters.
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  It took twenty years because protecting shared resources forces countries to
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  confront power, economics, fairness, and accountability all at once.
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  And now the world has to prove the agreement is more than symbolic.
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  It has to prove that this can be implemented, and it can work.
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  And we're gonna find out how that's gonna happen and when that's gonna happen,
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  all of that if you follow this podcast.
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  So follow the podcast, How to Protect the Ocean podcast, this one here, for
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  your next weekday Ocean News Update, which is tomorrow, and we're gonna be
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  talking to Rebecca Hubbard, who's the director of the High Seas Alliance,
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  and she's gonna talk all about how the High Seas Alliance started, all about
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  the High Seas Treaty, what to expect, what can we expect in the next year at
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  the first COP for the High Seas Treaty.
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  It's gonna be a lot of fun.
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  Don't miss out.
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  Hit that follow button right now.
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  And of course, if you have any questions or you have any comments or
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  you wanna continue this conversation that I started here, you can
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  hit me up on any of my socials.
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  They're in the show notes.
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  Check it out.
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  And if you want to check out the sponsor of the show, Pisces Oceans, which is the
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  company I work for, it's piscesoceans.ca.
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  Check it out.
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  We help eliminate barriers so that you can have success in your project.
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  So check that out, piscesoceans.ca.
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  All the links are in the show notes.
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  I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the
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  How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  Have a great day.
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  We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.